Supercar engineer Romy Mayer is smashing the status quo on International Women's Day.

Red Bull’s Mayer this week addressed a group of 150 high-school girls at the Queensland University of Technology’s Power of Engineering series. The initiative is designed to give girls interested in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) some hands-on experience as well as air time with career advocates such as Mayer.

It’s an initiative close to the race engineer’s heart — she remembers thinking the male-dominated world of engineering sounded daunting when she was of high school age.

Yilmaz applauds Mayer: “Romy’s work highlights just how important STEM will be for those working in the automotive industry now and into the future.

“As the saying goes, ‘You can’t be, what you can’t see’ and Romy provides a face for women working in automotive. Automotive, and motorsport more specifically, has traditionally been very male dominated, with women often relegated to the role of grid girls. It’s great to see women contributing in sophisticated roles — at the very top of the motor sport world.”

By Agron Latifi

Professional female engineers were in Wollongong on Monday to recruit more females to the engineering game.

The not for profit Power of Engineering crew were particularly keen to inform young females as well as regional and Indigenous high school students, that engineering was a profession within their grasp.

So for the first Power of Engineering event in the city, students took workshops and toured some of Wollongong’s best known industry work sites.

By Phoebe Moloney

Year 9 and 10 students from around the Central West made an excursion to Lithgow on Monday, July 31, to learn exactly what the field of engineering is.

Students from Lithgow, Portland Central, Gulgong, Mudgee and Oberon high schools toured hubs of engineering ingenuity around town including EnergyAustralia’s Mt Piper power station, the Mines Rescue training facility and the Lithgow Valley Springs bottle factory.

By Rebecca Franks

JOINING the air force cadets was a major turning point for Randwick’s Renee Wootton who discovered a passion for “pulling apart planes” and went onto study aerospace engineering.

The 23-year-old now works at Qantas in Mascot and travels to schools across NSW to encourage students ‒ particularly women ‒ to study STEM subjects and consider a future in engineering.

As a proud Tharawal woman, Ms Wootton also volunteers with disadvantaged Aboriginal young people through an after school program run by The Settlement in Redfern and has been nominated for a NSW/ACT Young Achiever Award as a result.

BY JAY BATTEN

With the global demand for engineering and science graduates booming, diverse and engaging careers are being offered in a huge range of industries. If only there was enough people to fill them. We spoke to Jillian Kenny, Co-Founder of Power of Engineering, a not-for-profit organisation determined to increase participation – and particularly females – in engineering careers.

What are engineers?

Engineers use physics, science and mathematics to solve real world problems that make the world and the lives of those who live in it a better place. Everything from water sanitation in developing communities, to prosthetics for people who have lost limbs require maths and science.

Our co-founder Felicity Furey has been announced as one of six BOSS Young Executives of 2016!

Applicants went through a rigorous judging process that culminated in a simulated “day in the life of a CEO” exercise. They were given information 48 hours beforehand and on the day required to develop a strategic plan for a visiting global manager as well as deliver a podcast to staff. Over the course of the day emails and requests were piled on the contestants to test their prioritising, decision-making and leadership skills,

The judges noted that the group members’ flair for business was critical in propelling them to the top.